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John L. Stanizzi
Boycott
St. Mary’s School
1959
It must have been the accumulation
of crimes that earned me the label bad boy,
because in October of the 4th grade
Sister Maria Richard had had it
with my shenanigans, and so she went
to the ditto machine and made 40
warm, smelly copies of the word boycott,
along with its definition, and she
handed them to the class as she explained
that this was what they were to do to me—
they were all to boycott me at recess.
But I sat alone on the steps of the
fire escape, and though they didn’t know,
I learned it too, and was boycotting them.
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